Italy sees months-long delay to EU Kosovo mission
BRUSSELS, May 26 (Reuters) - A European Union plan to take over policing duties in Kosovo from the United Nations could be delayed for months because of a diplomatic logjam, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Monday.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government wanted the European Union to take over policing when it declared independence from Serbia in February -- infuriating not only Serbia but also its own minority Serb population.
But Kosovo's failure to secure Serbian or Russian recognition means the U.N. Security Council has not transferred the policing mandate from the existing U.N. force, UNMIK.
With Serb ally Russia blocking a formal handover, the EU conceded last week that a June 15 target for the 2,200-strong police mission to start operation in full was no longer tenable.
"I believe EULEX could be operative on the field after the summer -- September and October," Frattini told reporters after EU foreign ministers discussed the issue in Brussels.
Slovenian Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency, played down the issue: "There might be some little delays, but nothing dramatic," he told a news conference.
Tensions with the ethnic Serb minority in northern Kosovo erupted into riots last month in which one U.N. police officer was killed and dozens were injured. NATO peacekeepers say conditions have been relatively calm since.
The EU already has some 300 staff on the ground, mostly receiving training in the capital Pristina, and others are due to arrive in the coming weeks.
But it is unclear when, or whether UNMIK will get the green light to pull out -- raising doubts over whether the EU can take over the premises and vehicles now being used by UNMIK.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana stressed that the bloc was continuing with the deployment as planned.
He told reporters he expected to discuss the matter with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the margins of a conference on Iraq in Stockholm on Thursday. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)
